Linux - Wireless NetworkingThis forum is for the discussion of wireless networking in Linux.

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Hi everyone!!!
I'm interested to find out if anyone had any luck getting Samba to work on an Ad-Hoc with Windows machine. I got file sharing to work under Windows were I simply had to change the static IP address in the TCP/IP Properties on both machines to get it working, which is what you have to do if you don't have a DHCP server running. I know how to change the static IP address under YaST but when I try connecting my Suse laptop with a Windows XP laptop wirelessly, the Win machine being set on Master mode, I don't seem to pick up any shared folders.
I know that my wireless interface is working since I can use my college's wireless network to browse away and I also know that Samba on my machine works perfectly well since I seem to be well able to browse into the shared folders of every single other windows machine that is connected the college network and find out shockingly how much some Windows users actually know about security.
So can anyone help me with using Samba over an Ad-Hoc?

Are you sure the Windows machine is acting like it should? If it's supposed to be the master browser, is it doing elections and announcing itself correctly? Maybe sniff for awhile and make sure the traffic looks like what you think it does. Is Samba configured to listen on the wireless interface, and both machines on the same subnet with addresses and broadcast setup correctly? Do you see anything with 'nmblookup -S -A <ip of Windows system>'? Check your routing tables, too. I can't think of anything else ATM...

Hi everyone!!!
I'm interested to find out if anyone had any luck getting Samba to work on an Ad-Hoc with Windows machine. I got file sharing to work under Windows were I simply had to change the static IP address in the TCP/IP Properties on both machines to get it working, which is what you have to do if you don't have a DHCP server running. I know how to change the static IP address under YaST but when I try connecting my Suse laptop with a Windows XP laptop wirelessly, the Win machine being set on Master mode, I don't seem to pick up any shared folders.
I know that my wireless interface is working since I can use my college's wireless network to browse away and I also know that Samba on my machine works perfectly well since I seem to be well able to browse into the shared folders of every single other windows machine that is connected the college network and find out shockingly how much some Windows users actually know about security.
So can anyone help me with using Samba over an Ad-Hoc?

I'll help you by saying that samba does work wirelessly between Windows and Linux machines. I proved it last night while working on a recording project. One machine runs audio plug-ins that require a parallel port dongle in order to work. My new laptop doesn't have a parallel port, but the old one does. Therefore, I have had to share files between the two. The old machine can only get on the net by way of wireless. Therefore, the only direct way to share files between the two is with wireless. Since both machines are dual boot, it is important that they can communicate with each other, no matter which one is running which operating system.

I can give you general hints and observations. Some may apply to you, some may not.

Firstly, if you want to use samba wirelessly, you need to make sure that samba's daemons get invoked after the wireless adapter has it's IP address, not before. Since I don't know how your system boots (or even what distro you are using), I don't know if samba starts before or after your wireless adapter gets its IP address. You need to make sure that things start when they are supposed to.

Secondly, samba really likes static IP addresses. I have found that the biggest problem I had with samba was when all the computers on my LAN used DHCP. It didn't matter whether they were Windoze or Linux machines...if the IP address wasn't right, samba wouldn't connect properly, if at all. Once I changed everything over to using static IP addresses, my samba problems went away.

Thirdly, you need to make sure you set up at least one ad-hoc account on your Windoze machine. This is fairly easy to do, and considering you use Windows XP, here are the steps to make that happen:
a) Click on the wireless networking icon in the system tray.
b) Click on "View Wireless Networks".
c) Click on "Change the order of preferred networks".
d) Click on "Add..."
e) Leave "Network name (SSID)" blank
f) Leave "Network Authentication" set to "Open".
g) Set Data encryption to "Disabled".
h) Check "This is a computer-to-computer (ad hoc) network; wireless access points are not used."
i) OK it.

It's fairly obvious, this isn't the most secure thing, but that's Windows for you.

Fourth, Sometimes, you have to click the "Workgroup" icon a couple of times for the Windows computer to realize it is chatting with another computer, not an access point. Without the access point putting in its two cents worth, the two machines might not immediately realize they can talk to each other on their own.

Fifth, if you get it to work once, it will continue to work thereafter. While the initial connection between the two computers might not be immediate, they will connect.

Sixth, be ready for things to move slowly. I have noticed that Windows machine to Windows machine and Linux machine to Linux machine provide the greatest wireless connection speeds and throughput. However, Windows to Linux file transfers don't move nearly as swiftly. Not sure why that is.

Seventh, install smb4k. It makes connecting to shared resources as easy as Windoze. I don't run my Linux machines without it.

Suffice it to say, Windows machines and Linux machines can share files between each other wirelessly. You just need to be sure you have things set right...more so on the Linux/samba side of things.